


Ennia

by delicatelyglitterywriter



Series: HSAUOR Extended Universe [2]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, F/M, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Minor Character Death, narvin is a disaster, please someone help him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 01:00:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25105864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delicatelyglitterywriter/pseuds/delicatelyglitterywriter
Summary: During one of their study sessions, Narvin looks at the photos Leela has in her room, and things turn sour.
Relationships: Leela (Doctor Who)/Narvin (Doctor Who)
Series: HSAUOR Extended Universe [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1818331
Comments: 6
Kudos: 7





	Ennia

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The High School AU of Rassilon](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22292131) by [clockworkouroboros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clockworkouroboros/pseuds/clockworkouroboros). 



> minor character death is ennia, leela's canonical sister who is canonically dead. so character death is canonical is what i'm trying to say.

Narvin’s been in Leela’s house thirteen times since their tutoring sessions began, including the present one. Over the thirteen visits, Narvin’s started to notice things about Leela, beyond just her academic ability (or lack thereof; though he’s starting to agree that she does, in fact, have great academic ability and simply needs the right supports to understand the content. He’s surprising even himself with the thought).

He’s started to notice the way she’s got her room set out, in a way that he can only describe as ‘organised chaos’. It’s somehow messy _and_ neat at the same time, and everything seems to have its place in the mess. Narvin can’t, for the life of him, figure out _how_ she keeps her room this way, but it seems to work for her. And it’s somewhat endearing, not that Narvin would ever admit that to anyone, including himself.

He’s also taken greater notice of pictures and posters and merchandise Leela has around her room, telling him about her favourite music and television shows, and loved ones. He’s only looked at the posters and merchandise so far, not daring to look too closely at the framed photos lined up neatly on a few shelves opposite her bedroom window. He feels that looking at the photos would be too...intimate. He thinks he’d learn more about Leela than he’d care to. But, his curiosity has been steadily growing since he first took notice of them, and today, he’s finally mustered up the courage to look closer at them.

Leela’s gone downstairs to get them a snack, and in that moment, Narvin takes his opportunity and goes up to the shelves to look closer. He doesn’t touch anything, though, not yet, and simply peers at them. They appear to be standard family photos, taken at and around their old house, and some at festivals or on holiday. He jumps when he hears Leela behind him.

“I was wondering how long you would keep going not looking at the pictures,” she says, amused. Narvin’s head whips around so fast he feels mildly dizzy. Leela closes the door with her foot and puts a plate carrying two apples on the floor. 

“It is okay, I do not mind you looking at pictures of my family,” she says, stepping up beside him to look at the pictures, too. She takes one off the shelf, grinning. “This is at my nana’s 70th birthday. That is her, right there. She made us dress up as food. She loves food and thought it would be funny.”

Narvin can’t help but smile, just a little, at that. “Which one is you?”

Leela points out a little girl - barely five if Narvin had to guess - painted red with black dots all over her, wearing a green hat. “My mother painted me as a strawberry because I have red hair. She thought it was funny. I was too little to know what was happening. All I remember is that the paint was itchy.”

Narvin’s smile grows a fraction wider at that, and he acts impulsively, picking up a different picture, of a girl and two boys swimming in a lake, and holds it out to Leela. Leela launches into the story without prompting. Narvin repeats this with several other pictures he finds interesting, finding that he’s enjoying Leela’s story. Somehow her ability to tell stories is both surprising and unsurprising at the same time. 

After a story about the time Leela got into a fistfight with some kid down the street, Narvin spots a lone picture at the end of one of the shelves, of a really little girl, perhaps 1 or 2 years old. She looks like Leela, but she’s got much darker hair, which is not at all red, and her eyes are brown, not blue. He picks it up, studying the girl curiously. She’s not been in any of the other pictures.

“Leela, who’s this?” he asks, showing Leela the picture. All at once Leela’s smile vanishes, to be replaced with a deep frown as she snatches the frame and holds it close to her chest.

“Do not touch that!” she growls, scowling at Narvin.

Narvin’s so taken aback by her sudden change in mood that he takes a half-step back, his hands coming up in a placating gesture. He’s not sure what to say, or if he _should_ say anything. He’s really not good at these kinds of situations. When Leela doesn’t speak again, he figures he should say something. He thinks through the possible things he could say before speaking.

“I’m, uh, sorry, I, er, I didn’t mean to…”

His brain refuses to provide him any more words. He lets his words taper off and he battles between feeling sick to his stomach and blushing. Leela’s glare softens a little, but she’s still frowning.

“I do not want you here anymore, Narvin,” she says shortly; flatly. It’s a statement and a command, and Narvin’s too flustered and ashamed to refuse her.

“Oh.”

He glances between the bedroom door, and the window, unsure which way to leave. He came in the front door, but he’s not sure if Leela’s parents are home yet, or if they’re asleep, or what’s happening.

“Front door,” Leela says. 

Narvin can only nod, and shuffle over to the door. He opens it and nearly falls backwards after Leela’s dog jumps upwards. He yelps and goes to close the door again, but Leela’s faster, dropping the photo frame on her bed to step between Narvin and the dog, catching it by the collar and coaxing it down to the ground so Narvin can pass. 

Narvin practically runs down the steps and out the front door. He hastens off the property and down the road, only stopping to catch his breath after he’s a block and a half away from Leela’s place. He turns and looks back, feeling as if he might cry. 

_Huh, that’s new_. 

He’s never been a crier; not even when he was six and fell off his bike, resulting in a knee so badly scraped that it took his parents twenty seven minutes to patch up - and yes, he was counting. Incidentally, the same incident is what made him swear off engaging in outdoor physical activity. 

He stares back down the road, wondering who that girl in the picture was, and why Leela reacted in such an...animal way when he asked about it. He hadn’t _meant_ to hurt Leela, he didn’t _want_ to. He actually _cared_ (eyuck) about her, and hated that he’d clearly made her upset. 

He could only hope she would forgive him.

\----

The day following the photograph incident is a Saturday. Meaning that Narvin has to sit with his mistake for two whole days. Narvin keeps himself as busy as possible to avoid spiralling into a deep pit of despair and self-loathing, though he wouldn’t even know why he would be like that; it’s not like he likes Leela enough to be upset at losing their Definitely Not A Friendship.

Acquaintance, he reminds himself. Leela is nothing more than an acquaintance, and he really shouldn’t go around forgetting simple words like that.

Narvin is aware that denial via distraction is far from the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but it’s the only one he’s got at this point, so he’s going to use it. However, it backfires on him at night, when he’s not doing anything, and, for the first time in his life, he’s had trouble sleeping over something he considers so unimportant.

By the time Monday rolls around, he’s a wreck. He’s got bags under his eyes and he’s exhausted, though he denies it vehemently, and is more irritable than usual. If Romana notices, she’s polite enough not to notice. Brax is too busy pining after Romana (honestly, what _does_ he think he’s going to accomplish? Narvin knows for a _fact_ that Romana’s interest in him is strictly platonic, but even that was a bit of a stretch in his less-than-humble opinion), and Ace teased him about it until he snapped at her and told her to go away, in less than cordial terms. 

Fortunately, she’d listened, and now he’s sitting alone in the library, head resting in his arms, trying to get a few minutes of sleep so he can avoid getting in trouble for dozing off in Mr Borusa’s class. He manages to nearly doze off when Leela’s voice snaps him to attention.

“Ace told me you swore at her.”

He looks up, alarmed. As much as he wanted to make things right with Leela so he stopped having these very inconvenient emotions, he had no idea _how_ , and so confrontation with her of any sort terrified him. Leela, however, somehow looks both annoyed at him and concerned about him, and he knows she’s not going to go away until they’ve talked, or whatever the right word was.

He really needed to sleep.

“So what if I did?” he grumbles, shifting himself until he’s sitting up with his head resting in his hand.

“It is not nice.”

“I’m not a nice person,” Narvin points out, stifling a yawn. Leela rolls her eyes in a very Romana-like way - _as iron sharpens iron,_ Narvin thinks wearily - and crosses her arms over her chest.

“You look tired.”

“And you look like you’re breaking the dress code, _again_.”

Narvin knows it’s a cheap shot and that he definitely wouldn’t be able to find something bad enough to report her for, not in his state. Still, best to remind her of where he stood. She sighs and sits down. He hates how _concerned_ her sigh sounds.

“What is the matter, Narvin? Is it because of the picture?”

Narvin wants to deny it and say no, and that it was instead some vague family issue that didn’t concern her, but he’s so tired he can’t even bring himself to tell that lie. He nods once, staring down at the table. He expects Leela to get cross at him, or to laugh at him, or something equally as insensitive - _not_ that he needs sensitivity - but to his great shock, Leela doesn’t. Instead, she tentatively and gently reaches out and touches his shoulder.

“I am not angry at you, Narvin,” she says. “I am sorry that you thought I was. It...It was just a sad thing I was not ready to share with you, and I got de...de-fence-able.”

“Defensive,” Narvin corrects without thinking before yawning.

“Yes, that,” Leel says, retracting her hand. In his periphery he can see her bring her hands down to her lap and fiddle with her fingers. “The picture you saw, that was my sister, Ennia.”

“Was?” Narvin asks, picking up the use of the tense, even in his only-semi-conscious state. Leela nods, audibly swallowing. 

“She, uh, she died before I was born,” Leela explains, her voice quieter than he’d ever heard it. He looks up, to read her body language properly. She looks scared. Or sad. He thinks for a second. Vulnerable, he tells himself. She looks vulnerable.

“Oh.” He thinks again. “What, uh, what happened to her?”

Leela chews on her bottom lip. “She was hit by a car when she was three. The driver, he did not mean to, but it is still sad. I...I keep the picture because I think a person is never really gone until they are forgotten. I do not want Ennia to be gone. She is still my sister, even if I did not know her in life.”

Narvin finds himself speechless. Leela’s just divulged what he presumes to be one of her deepest secrets to him, and he has no idea what to say. What _should_ he say? He’s not good at emotional things, as he’s proven for about the gazillionth time since Friday, and yes, he’s perfectly aware that’s not technically a number, but he’s tired and can’t be bothered to count. Still, he feels like he ought to say _something_.

“That’s uh...sweet?” he says, cringing at the sound of the word, and he immediately backtracks. “Keeping the photo, I mean, not that she died. It’s not sweet that she died, that bit is sad.”

At this point, Leela does what Narvin feared she’d do when she first approached him, but now it’s a relief: she laughs. Well, it’s more of a giggle, but Narvin’s brain is too exhausted to think of specific synonyms and it opts for umbrella terms instead. Narvin almost instantly relaxes, and finds himself smiling at how...cute she looks when she’s happy. Narvin almost immediately gags at the thought. Leela is _not_ cute; she’s... _Leela_.

 _Bad, Narvin,_ he scolds himself, and he shakes his head to banish the thoughts. Disgusting. 

“Thank you, Narvin,” Leela says, after she’s stopped giggling. 

“What for?” Narvin asks, perplexed. He knows he should have asked ‘for what’, but he’s not in English class and Leela is hardly advanced enough to growl at him for getting the words jumbled. 

“For caring enough about me to be worried that you’d made me really upset,” Leela says, sending Narvin into an internal panic.

_How is she able to read and judge emotions and situational emotion so well?!_

“I think you are the only person, besides maybe Romana and Ace who care enough to lose sleep over something like this,” Leela goes on affectionately. “But you can sleep well tonight, Narvin. I am not angry at you.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Leela laughs again, and leaves without another word. Narvin is left alone, unsure how to process the relief he feels. All he can do is fall asleep, the adrenaline completely washed away by the relief. By the time he wakes up, it’s the end of the day, and he’s missed the last two periods, and Mr Borusa is standing over him, a scowl on his face. Narvin gulps. This is going to be at least a week’s detention. Narvin sighs deeply. 

Leela’s decided to spare his life, but his parents, he knows, won’t be so merciful. So much for staying out of trouble.

**Author's Note:**

> i gotta finish my other non-high school au fic


End file.
